i54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The life of the tribe as a whole seemed to be well regulated. Custom, with 

 the old men as its exponents, was the only law. Where there were few old men, 

 each individual, within limits, could do as he pleased. 



Howitt writes of the tribes studied by hirn that custom regulated 

 the placing of huts in the camp, and even the proper position of indi- 

 viduals within the huts. In the Kaiabara tribe single men and women 

 lived on opposite sides of the camp. The old women kept an ever 

 watchful eye upon the young people to prevent improprieties. In 

 another tribe the women could not come to the camp by the same path 

 as the men, a violation of the rule being punishable by death. The 

 law of custom thus controlled almost every phase of the life of the 

 individual, including many individual matters as well as conduct 

 toward others; the intercourse of the sexes is or was most definitely 

 limited and regulated; the women who were eligible to each man in 

 marriage were also rigidly determined by custom, as well as the pro- 

 prieties of conduct toward the wife's family. Eeference has already 

 been made to the severe restrictions entailed by the initiation and other 

 ceremonies, and also to the minute regulations regarding the choice of 

 food. In all cases these customs were enforced by severe penalties. In 

 some tribes the local group or camp united to punish any member who 

 was guilty of overstepping these bounds as well as complicity in more 

 serious crimes such as incest, murder or the promiscuous use of fight- 

 ing implements within the camp. Most customs were, however, prob- 

 ably obeyed from habit, the native being educated from infancy in the 

 belief that infraction of custom would produce many evils such as 

 premature grayness, pestilence and even cosmic catastrophes. In fact, 

 among the tribes observed by Howitt authority was generally imper- 

 sonal, though not always, for the headmen were often men of great 

 personal ability and were greatly feared and respected by the rest of 

 the tribe or group (Howitt, pp. 296-300). 



Questions of right and wrong for the Australians seem to have 

 centered chiefly about food restrictions, secrets relating to the tribal 

 ceremonies, the sacred objects and wives. Moral precepts probably 

 originated in association with the purely selfish idea of the older men 

 to keep all the best things for themselves. 9 In this way, at least, may 

 be explained many of the regulations regarding what the younger men 

 might eat. So also as to marriage, for aside from restrictions as to 

 totem and class into which a man might marry, all the younger women 

 were reserved by the old men, the less desirable ones, alone, being 

 available to the young men. But, granting the selfish character of 

 many of the rules, there was still a certain amount of morality which 

 transcended anything of this sort. The old men in their leisure 

 " instructed the younger ones in the laws of the tribe, impressing on 



9 Spencer and Gillen, " Native Tribes," etc., p. 48. 



